Bethesda Senior Designer Ferret Baudoin Has Passed Away

On October 15, Fallout 76 lead designer Eric "Ferret" Baudoin passed away. The info came via Fallout 76 project lead Jeff Gardiner on Twitter and a Facebook tribute group memorializing Baudoin.

According to Kenneth Vigue, founder of the charity Fallout For Hope and creator of Chad: A Fallout 76 story podcast, who spoke to Baudoin's family, Baudoin passed away suddenly due to complications from cancer surgery.

"We'd text about any and all RPGs we were playing. He's the only person I know that plays more of them than [Emil Pagliarulo, design director at Bethesda] and I. He completed four runs of the most recent Pathfinder RPG alone," Gardiner said.

Pagliarulo also stated, "I'm still pretty numb over the news of Ferret Baudoin's passing. I worked closely with Ferret on so many different things at BGS over the years, from his zany robot Ironsides in Fallout 4 to stuff I can't even talk about yet in Starfield."

In addition to Fallout 76, Baudoin worked at BioWare as a lead designer on multiple Dragon Age titles, including Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age II: The Black Emporium, and Dragon Age: Origins. Over at Obsidion, he worked on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2. According to Linkedin, Baudoin also served as a senior designer on the unreleased Starfield.

Players have also been leaving tributes in Fallout 76 for Baudoin under the tag #ThanksFerret. An in-person tribute at the Fallout 25th anniversary cosplay celebration is also planned.

Baudoin's family has set up a donation page for his children's college fund and also welcome donations to the American Cancer Society as well.